Scimitar still in hand, Haarn sat on his haunches beside a thick-boled maple tree and watched the group.

"Me," another man said, "I'm all for bed. The sun will come up early enough tomorrow and we can set to hunting them damned wolves again."

"They're nocturnal feeders," still another said. "I'm telling you, with or without that enchanted charm the shepherd gave us, this is our best time of hunting wolves."

"It's also the most dangerous," Ennalt argued. "While we're hunting them, they can be hunting us." He was a small-built man who had a habit of lifting the lantern he carried and peering into the forest. "Especially that scar-faced bastard the shepherd's promising to pay the bonus for."

"We've killed nine of those wolves," one of the earlier speakers said. "I say we've done enough for the day-and the night-to warrant a rest."

Another man laughed. "You're just wanting to get next to that jug of elven wine, Tethys."

"And what of it?" Tethys snapped. "I'll drink the wine to replace the blood I've been donating to feed all these damned thirsty mosquitoes." He slapped at the back of his neck. "At least the bottle will numb some of the itching and put back some fluid into my body."

"That's what you've got water for," the woman replied evenly, but her voice held steel. "I won't abide any drunken fools on this mission."

" 'Mission,' she says," Forras said. He was the one with the limp. Even now as he stood in the glen, the man favored his weaker leg. "Spoken like she was a sellsword guarding the Assembly of Stars or Lord Herengar himself."

The woman met the man's gaze and he turned away.

"We were hired to kill wolves, Druz," Tethys said, "not to give our lives to some noble cause you might imagine up."

Haarn stared at the woman with interest. As solitary as his work and commitment was, he seldom saw others, and he saw women even less. He sometimes found them interesting, as his father had laughingly told him he would, but there was always the heartbroken side of his father that kept Haarn in check.