We made our way down St. Michael’s and out the West Gate. The City Watch glanced at us, but we were clearly an adventuring group and were leaving the city, so they didn’t ask any questions.

  The Scrub officially started on the other side of the Dark River, which was maybe a quarter of a mile outside the city if you kept travelling west along the Esterfeld Path. I always thought the name of the last village at the extreme west of the Seventh Kingdom, before you hit the Elven forests and sea, was called Esterfeld. It made me think of “East Field”. But maybe it was named after someone named Ester.

  “How far into The Scrub do we need to go?” I asked casually.

  “Tired already?” Connor quipped.

  I was beginning to understand what Addie meant about liking him one minute and disliking him the next. He seemed an okay guy who just couldn’t help his sarcasm. I don’t think he meant anything by it, but it was annoying…which I think I observed already in the past ten minutes of being with him.

  Natalyia, who was used to her cousin’s behavior, replied, “We’ll head down the path for another mile or so, then begin to cut south and southwest. The Scrub is mostly untouched, a mile or two outside the city, and it takes us toward the ruins of the old town and its graveyard. We can gather as we go and come back. I figure it’ll be a couple of hours all in.”

  That was more information than I had had so far, and more talking than she had done up to this point.

  I was a bit unsure of what her guild was. I assumed she was a warrior, but the way she moved along without kicking up as much dust or scraping her feet along dirt and rocks was making me reconsider. She might be in one of the thief guilds.

  That thought gave me pause for a moment before I remembered that she was Connor’s cousin.

  Connor and Thomas seemed to be in a conversation, and they were both walking a bit ahead of us, so I decided to talk a bit with them.

  She was pretty, in a tomboy sort of way. She had shoulder-length, sandy blonde hair, which she let fall naturally. Her clothes were mostly earth-neutral colors in light and dark browns and greens, but she was clean, and her clothes were of fine quality. She either came from money or had no problems finding it.

  “As our guide, I take it you have been out this way a few times?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I have traveled this way lots of times.”

  “In The Scrub? On purpose?”

  She laughed. “Well, I have been across The Scrub quite a few times on this alchemist quest, or other assignments for my guild. But no, I mostly have travelled the path into Esterfeld with my master.”

  We walked a bit further before I just came out and asked, “Natalyia, I can’t quite place your guild. You look like a warrior, talk casually like a merchant, and walk like a-” I hesitated.

  “Like a thief?” She asked, her lips and jaw quirking up on one side.

  “Well, yeah. I guess.”

  She laughed quietly, keeping our conversation between us. “That’s because I am a bard.” She said, swiping her nose with a finger in a conspiratorial kind of way.

  “Really?” I asked, surprised. “Cool.”

  She nodded.

  “But then, where’s your-”

  “Instrument?” She interrupted, chuckling again but not unkindly.

  “First, I tend to sing more than I play, but I do have a pipe and a tabor in my backpack.”

  I knew that a pipe was a type of wooden or bone flute, but I had no idea what a tabor was. SO I asked.

  “You’ve seen them before, even if you don’t know the name,” she said. “A tabor is a small drum worn on a belt around my waist. I can play the pipe with one hand and the tabor with the other.”

  “That sounds hard.”

  “It was hard to learn them both. A lot of my friends in the guild tend to play the lute, lyre, or mandolin. I prefer percussion and aerophones over strings. I can play a half dozen different woodwind instruments, but the others are back in my guild room.”

  I knew that bards were a guild under the umbrella of thieves, but based on confidential talks by my master, I knew there was more to their guild than met the eye. They were no less mischievous scoundrels than other thieves, according to my master, but there was a depth to them. I never learned exactly what he had meant by that, but he was less inclined to hide his coins around bards than their other sister guilds.

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  “So what’s it like being an enchanter?” She asked, pointing at a dirt trail off to our left. “We need to head this way, boys,” she called to her cousin and Thomas.

  We turned down the path she pointed out. I had not even noticed it until she called it to our attention.

  Natalysia and I were now in the lead. The path seemed to come and go as we walked, so I let her lead us along.

  “Well,” I began, “it involves a lot of reading.”

  “That’ll kill it for me, then.” She said with a kind smile.

  “Yeah. I think most mage guilds require a lot of reading, although there aren't many, except maybe sages who read and research as much.”

  “I take it you like books, then.”

  “I grew up around them. My father is the librarian at the university, so I spent most of my childhood surrounded by wise words.”

  “And smelly tomes.” She added.

  “That, too,” I said with a grin.

  “So your father is Lord Istari?”

  I was surprised she made that connection, or given her dislike of books, that she even knew who he was. My expression must have given away my thoughts because she touched her nose in the same conspiratorial way before whispering, “Bards see and hear a lot of things.”

  Before I could think of anything to say, she stopped and turned around to face all three of us.

  “Okay, a quick lesson and a warning.”

  She had our attention.

  “This is one of the narrower sections of The Scrub. To the west of us, as you can see, are grasslands and eventually woods. But the woods are way too far for us to walk to, but occasionally creatures leave the cool darkness of the forest to come onto the grasslands and scrublands to hunt.”

  I looked west. The slowly curving landscape that the Shallowlands provided allowed me to see vast distances in this hollow world. I was momentarily stunned again by its beauty and otherworldliness. Her conversation brought me back.

  “Anything in particular we should be careful about, Nat?” Connor asked.

  She withdrew her own copy of the list that Thomas was carrying. Hers had a lot of additional markings and notations.

  “Every creature on the alchemist list can be found here during either the day or the night. We won’t see any bats, most likely, but we could come across some coyotes, wolves, leopards, or lynx. An occasional feral bear, which was like a cross between a brown bear and a giant badger, is not unknown out here, and on at least one occasion with my master, we were attacked by a windstalker.”

  “Crap, Nat. You never told me about that.” Connor said.

  Windstalkers were like large cheetahs that ran as fast as the wind. They travelled alone, according to stories, and were sometimes used by sorcerers and spirits to seek revenge against those who harmed the world. Granted, that last bit may have just been a folktale.

  She shrugged. “It was at night and far deeper into The Scrub than we are going today. I doubt it will be an issue.”

  Natalyia kept her face neutral, but there was a glint in her eyes that told me she was amused at how spooked we men were out here, away from the city.

  Thomas cleared his throat. “Well, as long as we stick near each other, I’m sure we will be fine.” He nodded to her. “That was the warning, what about the lesson?”

  “Right to business, I like that in a holy man.” She said, her eyes twinkling even more. “The lesson is this: I have collected three different plants on the list and several different animals over the past few years around here. I will show you the plants, and the easiest to find and collect animals are red box turtles, desert tortoises, gopher constrictors, and long-tail rock lizards.”

  She took ten minutes to show us the plants she had in mind, which were easy to collect. We collected leaves from two and roots from the third. She reminded us to be sparing in our choices so we did not upset the windstalkers.

  Whether she was joking or not, we took her seriously.

  “How do we do this?” Connor asked.

  “What do you mean?” Thomas and I replied at the sme time.

  Natalyia said, “We stay near each other, but I’ll take the sunflower with me, and you and the holy man can work together. That way, we are in pairs, and if a viper or predator comes at you, you have backup until the other team gets to you.”

  Thomas agreed. “That way, we have a fighter and a caster in each group. Makes sense.”

  Connor looked like he was about to argue that he and his cousin should be together, but pairing with the healer was a bonus. He just nodded as he and Thomas moved off in their own direction.

  Natalyia called out to them. Keep making your way southwest from here and try to keep each other in line of sight.

  “Easier said than done,” Connor called back as he and Thomas passed by some tall scrub brush, whose spring leaves made it fill out more than it would have just weeks ago.

  “Natalyia, you want to go for plants or animals first?” I asked.

  “Call me Nat, and let’s look for the slower animals, but when we come across the plants, we’ll pick a little of each up as we go. That way we don’t waste our time or over farm one area.”

  My mother, the druid, would respect that approach. Although she may not have been a huge fan of farming some of the animals for alchemists, come to think of it.

  The turtles were the easiest to locate, and she showed me the difference between a brown and a red box turtle, as their shells were both reddish-brown against the similar color of the scrubland. It had to do with the coloration under their shell, not on top.

  We didn’t see any snakes, vipers, or otherwise, which I was fine with. The long-tail rock lizards were quick, and even with her skill, she only managed to get one out of three efforts with her throwing knives. She wouldn’t let me use a Magebolt spell since it could do too much damage and ruin the collection.

  “We’re here to collect, not play target practice,” she said without malice.

  She truly enjoyed being outdoors and had a deep respect for plants and animals.

  “Have you ever thought about being a druid?” I asked.

  She was carefully pulling up the roots of one of our plants and said, “In fact, I studied for a summer with a ranger before choosing the bard guild. My magic is not strong enough to be a druid, but it was good enough for the rangers.”

  I had not even thought about her using magic, but bards out of legend did have magical effects. At least, according to the stories I read when I was younger.

  “Bard magic is more on par with rangers, although strong casting is not unheard of in my guild.”

  She was being more forthcoming than I had expected, given that we had just met.

  I was about to comment on it when we both heard growling. In fact, we heard multiple growls followed by a call from Connor.

  Nat and I sprinted in the direction from which the growls and our companion’s call had come.

  We came upon a clearing and found Connor and Thoimas back-to-back facing a half dozen wolves, and one large wolf. It would be the alpha. It was not dire wolf-sized like I faced on the shepherd’s hill, but it was not tiny, either.

  We fell into place beside our friends. The wolves near us had scattered as we rushed upon them, but rejoined in the circle as soon as we passed.

  “Going for some fangs and claws, I see,” I remarked as I moved to stand between Connor and Thomas. The four of us stood with our backs together and faced in all directions. We were outnumbered, but with my new trinkets and Connor’s fire, we should be fine.

  “Fire and magic could destroy the components.” Nat chimed in.

  “Oh, that is going to be the least of your concerns, little morsel.” The alpha wolf growled.

  All four of our heads turned in its direction.

  A talking wolf? That’s not right. I thought to myself as a cold feeling crept down my spine and a fearful word leaped into my mind.

  Werewolf.