To greet the coming of night in the Marches requires a great deal of bravery.
This is true even should you have a roof over your head and four strong walls around you. As for camping outside, no man endowed with wits would ever consider it even in the direst of circumstances.
Growing up in the safety of the Middle Country, the hardships of the Marches were foreign to the twins of Parros—and the fiends, beasts, and barbarians that lived there mere fairytales. Fear had always been at a distance, never something that jumped out and bit into their hearts. Had it been otherwise, there was surely no way they would have spent an entire night in the Roodwood with the prickly vasya as their only shelter.
Even though Rinda and Remus were blissfully unaware of the good fortune that had protected them thus far, this was to be their second night in the forest, and if nothing else, the events of the day had taught them caution. The bodies of men— riders from Stafolos Keep—lay about them on the ground where they had fallen, and it was a certainty that more riders would be out searching for their missing brothers.
“Um, Rinda?” Remus spoke in a low, worried voice, their grim surroundings having a chilling effect on him.
“Not now! Go pick more of that grass!” Rinda spoke without even turning to look at him, so accustomed was she to her role as undisputed leader. She was busily tending to the wounded warrior that had saved them, washing his powerful arms and legs with a wetted cloth and applying a poultice of medicinal herbs.
“But the sun’s going down!” her brother continued.
“I can see, you know.”
“It’ll be nightfall soon!”
“I know, that’s precisely why I’m hurrying!”
“Let’s build a fire then. I’ll go get grass, okay?”
“No!” Rinda’s voice was stern. “If they see the smoke from the keep, we’re as good as caught!”
“But if we wait until dark—”
“Remus, I know why you’re afraid.” As she spoke, Rinda had propped up the man’s leopard head and was now attempting to pour water through his lips, without much success. “It’s because we’re in the Marches, right? But what would you have us do? Shall we just sally over to Stafolos Keep and say, please sirs, we’re afraid of the ghouls and demons in the woods, might we stay just one night? Think that would work?”
“But, but Rinda! Rinda…”
“My name is to be spoken, not whined,” Rinda said, her eyes flashing. “Really, is that anyway for the true heir to the throne of Parros to act?”
“But…”
“Strength, Remus. We have to live through this, somehow. Now, we’ve managed to get horses and swords, and there’s food in the riders’ saddlebags. If we can just make it through the night, tomorrow we can ride out to the road, maybe even find a town of some kind. But for tonight, we have no choice. We’re staying here.”
“We should have just left that thing you’re taking care of alone and gotten away while it was still light.”
“And lose our way in the accursed Roodwood and end up riding around in circles for all time? Don’t be foolish! And besides, I always know the right path. After all…” Rinda furrowed her brow and spoke as though deep in thought, “after all I am a Seer of Parros.”
Her brother fell silent. On the surface, the twins of Parros may have looked like two pearls from the same oyster, but Remus knew—had known for all of his fourteen years—that inside, they were different. For he lacked the power that should have been his by birthright along with the royal blood that flowed through his veins. He lacked the gift of foresight and clairvoyance, the gift of prophecy.
Rinda barely noticed her brother’s injured silence. Instead, her face suddenly lit up, and she leaned over her giant patient.
“Remus, look! He’s come awake!”
The leopard head shook from side to side, weakly at first and then with greater determination. The twilight was a pale lavender in the gloaming hour. Set in the leopard head, the man’s eyes shone with an unearthly yellow glow in the deepening dusk. Then he turned to look at the two children leaning over him.
The giant maw moved slightly, and out came a low growl. Remus, startled, drew back, but Rinda stayed leaning close over him, holding his head in her delicate hands and trying to get across to him somehow that they were his friends.
“Water? You want water?”
When she lifted the Gohran helmet that her brother had used as a makeshift bucket to bring water from the spring, the leopard-man abruptly rose to a sitting position and reached out a hand, his eyes flashing.
But when he lifted the helm to his mouth, he growled wildly in despair and frustration. The leopard mask placed on his head formed a barrier between face and water, preventing him from quenching his thirst.
Rinda tilted her head quizzically at his despair. Then suddenly, she clapped her hands together as an idea came to her. Standing up, she began to search around the clearing. After a while, she returned to her patient with a satisfied look on her face, brandishing her find—a single hollow stalk of straw. After demonstrating with the straw herself, she gave it to the man, who placed it between his lips and began, eagerly, to drink.
It was likely that a good nine-tenths of his weakened state was due to severe thirst and hunger. He seemed greatly improved after he had finished drinking—in what seemed to Rinda an impossibly brief period of time—the contents of the large helm.
“Who would do such a thing?” Rinda spoke as she gazed thoughtfully at the leopard head. “Why, if you put a mask like that on someone and left him alone, how would he eat or even drink? I tried to take it off while you were sleeping, you see, but it wouldn’t budge. It’s been fixed with some foul curse, I should imagine. But really, how could a powerful swordsman like you end up having something like that put on your head?”
The ears of the leopard head were bent forward attentively. From deep within the mask, two eyes sparkled with a penetrating light as they stared at Rinda, evidence he understood everything the girl said. The two gaps in the mask around his eyes were the only places where his true face showed through, but still, thought Rinda, so fierce was the suppressed rage and iron will hidden in those yellow eyes that she would not have been surprised to find that, in fact, they were the eyes of some wild creature and not a man’s at all. When Rinda had finished speaking, the leopard-man raised his powerful hands and tried once again to pull off the mask.
His efforts were made in vain. He let his hands drop again and gave a low anguished growl, but he reached out again when Rinda offered him some of the dried meat rations she had taken from the black riders’ saddlebags. It seemed the strips were easier to push through the mask than the water had been, and he soon began chewing on the dried meat hungrily.
“Well, at least you won’t die of starvation, even if you can’t get that off,” proclaimed Rinda, seeming somewhat relaxed as she knelt to watch the ravenous man eat.
Remus stood nearby, staring in round-eyed wonder. “So, what, he’s actually a human?” he asked with some doubt.
“More than you are sometimes, I should think!” said Rinda. “This leopard mask was put on him by some king or nobleman—or perhaps it was an evil sorcerer whose wrath he incurred. I’m sure of it! He certainly didn’t put it on himself— I can’t imagine anyone who would! Yes, it must be the work of some sorcerer. Why else would it stick on like it does even when he struggles to remove it? We’ve saved you,” she said, now turning to the leopard-headed warrior, “so we’re your friends. Now, what can we call you?”
While Rinda had been talking, a change had come over the leopard-man. It seemed the food and water had succeeded in bringing him back to life, though doubtlessly his phenomenal strength and powers of recuperation had also helped. Still holding a strip of dried meat in his hand, he let out a muffled growl. Rinda jerked back, startled at first, until she realized that he was saying something, though the mask made his words hard to make out.
“What’s that?” she prompted him again.
“Guin…”
“Guin?” asked Rinda. He seemed to be saying that one word over and over. “Is that your name?”
“I… I think so.” Now his words were coming through more clearly.